PSYCH 424 blog

One debate that has been going on since I was a kid is that violent video games, movies and tv shows cause younger kids to be more violent since their minds are like sponges and emulate what they see on TV, in movies and video games. Growing up, my parents did not want me listen to music with curse words, watch movies  or play video games that were rated for older people until I became the right age. However, they were not always able to control that since I would see that stuff with friends or while they would be at work. Personally, I can see how some games can lead to kids enjoying violent content but never thought that it would lead to violent acts in real life if the parents did a good or even just decent job of raising their kids. In the US, a lot of media content contains violence in some way, shape or form. “If you are watching premium channels, such as HBO and Showtime, an astonishing 85% of the shows contain violence.” (Gruman et al, 2017). This is a rather high number and does bring up a valid argument.

First let’s take a look at video games. In this day and age, a good majority of kids play video games and have since a very young age, both boys and girls. For example, you see many kids playing call of duty despite the rating and frankly they are scary something how they can just curse and barrade someone else who is just learning or trying to enjoy the game. However, I fell as though this speaks more to the kid itself and his or her environment. My parents allowed me to play the earlier call of duties but did not allow me to use a microphone to communicate with other out of fear mostly but also so I would not be exposed to that language even though I already was at school because that’s most likely where all kids learn the majority of their curse words. But is it really the video games causing the children to be violent or is it something else and it is just easier to blame the media content. Well the cathartic effect would say that the violent media content decreases violence. The cathartic effect states “Violent media may help people relieve their stress and aggressive impulses, so violent media may actually decrease violence.” (Gruman et al, 2017). This does not prove that violent media does not cause violence but it could support that there are other factors involved.

One thing that I must admit is that when I was a kid and watched violent movies I would sometimes re-enact those scenes on my sister but never to the point I would do anything to actually harm her, it was mostly to annoy her but what little brother does annoy their big sister. But at the same time when I would watch superhero movies, I would also try and climb walls like spiderman which just proves I had a wild, creative and imaginative mind, and not violent. But according to research “much of the research on video games has been somewhat simplistic in its assumptions about gaming.”(Gruman et al, 2017). So even though some research shows correlations between violence and video games, correlation does not prove causation, leaving room for other factors to affect kids and re-enact what they see in violent media.

Lastly, video games have been know to have a correlation with hand-eye coordination and many young kids will say that playing games such as car games teach the kids how to maneuver a car when they turn the age and start to drive. This is the same for men in the army as virtual reality is becoming bigger and bigger to train them and the same goes for astronauts and other field that can be dangerous in real world scenario.

All in all, one important point to remember about violence and the causes of aggression is that aggression and aggressive behavior is overdetermined. “A behavior is said to be overdetermined when it has multiple causes.” (Gruman et al, 2017). This mean that different factors can lead to a kid being violent and aggressive, including but not necessarily violent media.

References:

Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. (2017). Chapter 7: Applying Social Psychology to the Media. In Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems (pp. 208–248). essay, SAGE.

Being a student at Penn State has really shown me what being part of a community feels like and how it can be extremely positive for the individuals who make up the community. This has given me a positive sense of community. According to research done by McMillan and Chavis (1986) positive sense of community comprises of four elements: `1. Membership, 2. Influence, 3. Integration and fulfillment of needs and 4. Shared emotional connection. (Gruman, Schneider and Coutts, 2017).

“Membership is the idea that a community has geographical or social boundaries, and we can determine who belongs in the community and who does not. Membership in a community can bring about a sense of emotional safety, belonging and the desire to invest in one’s community.” (Gruman and al, 2017). For Penn State, membership is more than just student and staff, it also includes alumni, families of the students and staff, and especially the families living in State College. This means that the Penn State community is not bound by borders as you can find people in this community all over the world.

“Influence refers to the power an individual has within a community and the power the community has over the individual. Individuals who feel as though their presence in the community doesn’t make a difference are unlikely to feel a strong sense of community.” (Gruman and al., 2017). If you’ve ever been tailgating for a Penn State football home game, you would know that this community has a powerful influence on the individuals. From the moment you arrive downtown or on campus, all you see is blue and white, whether it’s girls wearing white shirts and blue jeans or guys wearing a penn state football jerseys, the influence of this community is stronger than most.

“Integration and fulfillment of needs refers to the idea of shared values among community members, satisfying each other’s needs, and sharing goods and resources.” (Gruman and al., 2017). Within the Penn State community we see this a lot when career fairs happen and Penn State alumni come back to find current Penn State students and give them opportunities to get an internship or perhaps jobs. This is due to shared values having gone to the same school and knowing that their education will help the companies they work for and help the student as well. This makes the individuals appreciate the community that much more for what they can provide for them.

Shared emotional connection means “community members in a cohesive community will feel a shared bond with others within their community. This can be a result of spiritual bond, or cultivated through shared experiences, celebrations, or rituals.” (Gruman and al., 2017). For many in the Penn State community, especially the students, they share many great memories throughout their time there. From study sessions, to hangouts, to parties, and to football games the emotional connection for the students is one that is hard to match in another way.

All in all, a sense of community is something that can be positive for the individuals and the individuals can be positive for the community by making it a strong connection and meaningful to all involved. Personally, I love being apart of a community like this and it does not feel like I am but it truly does feel like WE ARE!

References:

Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. (2017). Chapter 12: Applying Social Psychology to Community. In Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems (pp. 406–442). essay, SAGE.

When it comes to making friends, many people tend to gravitate towards people who either resemble them physically or towards people who remind them of a more familiar and comfortable setting. Being uncomfortable and a minority in one of your most personal settings is not an easy to do and deal with. It is hard to truly understand different experiences and views when you yourself are not exposed to those experiences often and can be a shock when first exposed to them. For myself, I was almost always in situations where I find myself being part of the minority but able to navigate it well as I’ve always had or tried to have an open mind when meeting people and this is something my parents and family have instilled in me. But I am one of the few in this country who are lucky enough to be in situations that taught me this early on.

When I first started school as a young kid, I went to the French International School in Maryland. The school was diverse but made up mostly of white french speakers and I found myself being a minority as a black African french speaker. There were others like me but still a minority along with others such as Arab french speakers and even some Asian french speakers. As I got older and looked back, I realized that many of the white students were closer and that the minorities were closer to one another but this never affected me because I was friends with everyone because what drove us as kids was just to have fun and that included everyone. It was more so the parents that would be friends and therefore the kids would spend time with more similar kids outside of school, but this never stood out to us kids. As we got older we started becoming closer to one another and the groups were much more mixed and diverse. Our personal diversity started to mean less and less because we started to learn about who the person is as opposed to what they looked like. Personal diversity is complex and people differ on core characteristics that are key determinants of life experiences (Gruman, Schneider and Coutts, 2017). But since we were friends this did not affect us as much since we were so young and for me I had friends of all colors, gender, social class, and background. Personally, I became friends with the kids who would play sports and do fun stuff during recess. And it was not until I got older that our personal experiences became a bigger factor in understanding and relating to someone. I ended up leaving the French school after 7th grade and switched to the American school system still in Maryland.

When I switched schools, my family moved to Potomac, Maryland which is primarily a white area. There were other races but my school was mostly white, then asian, and then the rest were a mix of minorities but still a really small percentage. I was nervous as any kid switching to a new school would be especially since I was used to learning in french and the french system. Luckily I found myself being helped my people who later became some of my best friends and are like family to me today. The first kid I met and introduced himself to me was a white jewish kid but that had nothing to do with us becoming friends, it was his kindness and our similar interests that made that friendship start off strong. By the time I graduated high school me and him were close and our group consisted most of Asian kids with me being the only black kid and him the only white kid. We had 2 Chinese kids, 1 Indian kid, 1 Sri Lankan kid, a Filipino, an Iranian and a Mongolian. Our group did not even realize how diverse we were until we went off to college because we were all open minded and just had similar interests, mainly video games. As we got older and closer to graduating, we became more aware of our differences and that never tore us apart but rather we were curious to learn about our experiences and open enough to talk about them. This stuck with us all as we went to different colleges for the most part but are still closer than most friend groups from our high school.

The Indian kid and I ended up going to Penn State, a predominantly white institution, the white kid, the Iranian and one of the two Chinese kids went to Maryland which is also a PWI, the Sri Lankan went to purdue, again PWI, and the other Chinese kid went to Cornell which is another PWI. (The mongolian moved back to Mongolia but we are all this close and talk like we see each other daily). All of us have had different experiences but embraces our differences and took this with us to college. When I got to Penn State I lived in a dorm for minorities in STEM fields as an attempt from Penn State to make the students feel more comfortable. While some stuck to that, I became friends with many different people and now my friend group was even more diverse. We range from black kids to a Greek to a Moroccan Jew to Hispanics, and Whites. As we were now older, we did understand that certain different experiences could not be understood fully but this only drove us to want to understand more. And long story short, we are all extremely close and again the common link was video games, but additionally our majors and hobbies like sports and music made us so close. We all had the similar mindset of being open to one another and not judging because we understood that you cannot control you sex, social class, race and others because you’re born into it and as a kid it is almost impossible to change your family’s social class. The point of all this is to say that diversity when close to you can be an opportunity. “Although cultural diversity may foster misunderstandings and xenophobia, and demographic diversity may give rise to social problems, such as sexism, racism, and classism, diversity has the potential to produce positive results as well.” (Gruman, Schneider and Coutts, 2017). This is exactly what happened with me and my friends my entire life and we are able to appreciate our friendships that much more.

All in all, it is important to keep an open mind when meeting people and it is more than okay to be the minority as it can provide new insight into life and new insight into people. Being comfortable is nice but it does not allow much room for growths within yourself.

References:

Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. (2017). Chapter 14: Applying Social Psychology to Diversity. In Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems (pp. 484–523). essay, SAGE.

A major resource dilemma we are experiencing today is the lack of open space in big cities. Due to businesses, homes and many more buildings being built in big cities and those cities expanding. space is becoming more and more scarce. This also leads to overcrowding with people who drive cars and take more buses resulting in worse air quality and to less green spaces due to trees and nature being removed. This goes hand in hand with the problem of cars since less oxygen is being released into those cities and causes air pollutions. Additionally, overcrowding can lead to more violence due to more people in smaller spaces making them more irritable at times and more focused on them getting rewards versus others.

Resource Dilemmas, also known as common dilemmas, can be defined as “situations in which individuals must choose between self-interest (taking or using unsustainable amounts of a natural resource, such as fish or water) and the interests of the community or environment (taking a sustainable share, or less, of the resource).” (Gruman, Schneider and Coutts, 2017). Simply put, there are a finite amount of certain resources and a growing amount of people on the planet. People need to decide between picking the benefits of getting their resources now with consequences in the future or being more selfless by cutting back on the individual use of resources in the short term to benefit the larger population for the benefit of the future.

This brings up social design which can be defined as ” a process by which any building (e.g., office, school, residence, factory, retail store, prison) may be designed in collaboration with those who will actually use that building so that it is more user-friendly, as opposed to being designed solely by an architect who will never use that building.” (Gruman, Schneider and Coutts, 2017). This is a great process and can be used to attempt to counteract the harm done by constructing those buildings. For example, some buildings build rooftop greenhouses and even put greenery along the sides of building to attempt to boost oxygen level and help reduce air pollution.

Lastly are defensible spaces which “represent a way of fighting crime through careful arrangement of the physical aspects of communities, retail buildings, and residences.” (Gruman, Schneider and Coutts, 2017). The layout and design of the building can be aimed at discouraging certain crimes from burglars, robbers, and vandals reduce crime in the area and making it more friendly. This does not necessarily help reduce air pollution but does make the overcrowded areas more livable and feel safer.

All in all, it is up to the people to decide if we want to think in the short term or long term and give our planet a chance at sustaining itself. We have to start thinking beyond us and begin to solve the problems that affect us and will only worsen for future generations to come.

References:

Gruman, J. A., & Schneider, F. W. (2017). Chapter 13: Applying Social Psychology to the Environment. In Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems (pp. 443–483). essay, SAGE.